Good ol' Mom Bore used to coerce her five children into helping her out around the house by happily shouting, "Let's play legs!" This usually meant cleaning up after ourselves so we could find the pathway to our beds before we went to sleep. Maybe we'd each put away 10 items that were out of place, sweep the floor, put away the dried dishes--something piddly that didn't take very long to do but still eased Mom's workload. She would whistle, act like it was fun, and offer her assistance, so no one griped too much about "playing legs."
Yesterday I went back home to take Mom on an outing to Independence, but as soon as I walked into the house, she showed me a list of chores she needed done. "Legs!" I thought. Nothing was too demanding--fill her car's windshield wiper reservoir, open the basement windows, take down the storm window on the front door and replace it with a screen, etc. I checked everything off in about 10 minutes. I'm proud to report that my leg-playing was a job well done. Mom made sure each task was completed according to her expert specifications, meaning that I destroyed nothing in the process.
1 comment:
When my son was little and my husband too tired or traveling, we'd have a "Blitz". That was a 5-10 min period of clean up, pick up, straighten up wherever you were standing. I swear the Blitz was teh single thing that allowed me enough help to work, maintain a home, teach Sunday school and feed my family healthy meals. I have been teching it to my three year old grad daughter. We get a shopping bag and let her put her toys into it. She even likes to go get the bag and yell the word Blitz herself now! What small things we use to get through life but how important they are. You have one remarkable Mom!
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